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Looked-after Children

That is the danger of letting a real expert intervene on one's speech. Of course, my hon. Friend is right—that is one of the real strains in a child's life. We found that as far as possible we want, of course, to keep families together. The most important work in our country is done by social workers and other people in the social care field in maintaining families in a good state. We looked at projects in places such as Morden, one of the London boroughs, where there is an excellent family support unit. Its job is to identify a family in trouble, with stresses and strains within it that had come to people's attention through a GP, a social worker or a health visitor; or it could have come many other means. One of the jobs of a local authority is to keep good antennae on identifying where children and families are in that stressed state. In areas with good practice, we saw that where a family was deemed to be in need of support, in came that support. The whole Committee was very impressed by the Morden experience, where an all-singing, all-dancing support team would go in to support the family for six months, see if it could get them back on the right road, and then step back and let them get on with their own lives. Then, if it did not work, the team could do it again. The general point is that good social work support is essential; if it can support the family and the child in the family, that must, in many cases, be the right route. We found that the most difficult aspect of all this is the decision on when to take a child into care and striking the balance in deciding whether that child is better off in a rather dysfunctional family, perhaps with a history of mental illness or drug or alcohol addiction. A large number of families have serious problems, but that does not mean they cannot maintain a family life of some quality. It is a question of identifying the problem and then supporting the family, but at a certain stage making the decision. When we compared our experience with that of Denmark, we found—certainly this was my perception as Chair of the Committee—that what was being done in Denmark seemed to lead to a better reputation for the social work process. It seemed from the evidence we took and our experience in Denmark that people did not consider it the end of the world for their children go into some form of care; it was seen as a reasonably positive thing. We talked to families and experts and found that, in certain care situations, a good relationship with the birth family was maintained. The family would visit, even if there was a background of abuse, including sexual abuse. That relationship was maintained, and many families felt that it was right for their child to be in that situation. They valued the fact that they still had access and that that loving relationship could continue. When we took evidence from children who had been in care, one strong voice was that of children who said that they did not want a substitute family. Some quite liked the family that they had, and had the type of loving relationship that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) mentioned. Perhaps others had had too much struggle, strife and stress from the family that they had come from and did not want to try another one. Some children in that situation said that they would prefer some form of residential care. We found that in this country there is a history of saying, "No, no, no" to residential care, because there has been a background of large-scale residential care and there was a period in which evidence of widespread child abuse came to light. Now it is very difficult to persuade people that residential care is appropriate. In Denmark, we saw small units of not more than 12 or 14 children, which had a good atmosphere and came close to recreating a family relationship, but a caring one. They were open to parents and visitors.